Do Symbols Affect Reality?

[Black_Bird]

Can an idea or thought disguised as a symbol affect the fabric of reality? I suppose it really depends on one's definition of reality. Doesn't one's mind and how he choose to percieve affect what is "reality" to him? If a symbol, therefore, would affect the way his mind percieved, wouldn't it, in affect, change his reality?

 

[Silverluna]

Most certainly....
Look at religions....look at movies and literature....listen to musical patterns..they all have symbols and patterns....they have an impact on someone's reality in one way or another...

*scorns at her optimistic moodiness*

(( BB please read your PM? thanks!~kel~))

 

[Black_Bird]

Most certainly....
Look at religions....look at movies and literature....listen to musical patterns..they all have symbols and patterns....they have an impact on someone's reality in one way or another...

But do they have a potential to affect objective reality? An even better question, is there an objective reality?

 

[Starblayde]

now i thought i was intelligent

but that went waaaaaaaaay over my head... might have hit the colombia on the way over...

i know what objective means, and i know what reality means... but combined? thats too much for me

 

[claude_moveml]

symbols and reality

Well, if you stop believing in an objective reality you are up a certain creek with no paddling devices.

When I went mad I lost track of reality, and symbols became very important. At one point I thought I was a telepathic virus transmitted to a new host every time I fell asleep, killing the old host, but my family looked the same even though they were a different person's family because the symbols mother, father etc were represented by the same physical objects in each incarnation.

At another point in time I thought there was a telepathic war going on between me and the rest of the world, probably because I had killed lots of previous hosts by falling asleep. At one point I was helped into a bath by my dad, with what I thought the purpose of cooling my brain down which was in danger of overheating with all the fighting.

My perceived reality was full of symbols, and rich in meaning, but the objective reality was that I had become slightly unhinged. If you deny the existence of an objective reality, you rely entirely on your perceptions no matter whether they seem to be telling you very strange things. If you accept the existence of an objective reality you have a means of judging your perceptions and seeing if what you percieve actually makes sense.

 

[Black_Bird]

Re: symbols and reality

Well, if you stop believing in an objective reality you are up a certain creek with no paddling devices. <snip> If you deny the existence of an objective reality, you rely entirely on your perceptions no matter whether they seem to be telling you very strange things. If you accept the existence of an objective reality you have a means of judging your perceptions and seeing if what you percieve actually makes sense.

This is a very interesting way of looking at the problem. Thank you for sharing your experience.

Of course there seems to be several concensual truths that exists in every human society which allows us to interact, but are they really objective reality. There are also assumptions which without we wouldn't be able to survive, but these aren't objective reality either... or at least we don't know for sure.

 

[daedalos]

Can an idea or thought disguised as a symbol affect the fabric of reality? I suppose it really depends on one's definition of reality. Doesn't one's mind and how he choose to percieve affect what is "reality" to him? If a symbol, therefore, would affect the way his mind percieved, wouldn't it, in affect, change his reality?

Sounds like you have been dipping into post modern / post structuralist literary theory, or, better, semiotics. I tend to think about questions regarding symbols in terms of texts and language, so the question moves to how language as symbol can construct a reality.

I am not an expert on semiotics or literary theory at all (and there might be people around here who are), but I tend to think that language as symbol is a powerful force in constructing reality. Is language simply a collection of symbols that forms a reality that the vast majority choose to accept?

You mentioned objective reality in a later post. This is very difficult, and it seems to me it ultimately becomes a matter of faith. There is the old puzzler: how do I know that I am not a disembodied brain sitting in a container in a mad scientists lab? Actually, since the Matrix, we could invoke its plot here as well.

Just some random ramblings.

 

[Dhalgren]

I'm guessing he's been reading Joseph Campbell.

 

[Black_Bird]

Re: Re: Do Symbols Affect Reality?

Sounds like you have been dipping into post modern / post structuralist literary theory, or, better, semiotics. I tend to think about questions regarding symbols in terms of texts and language, so the question moves to how language as symbol can construct a reality.

Actually, its neither. I've been working on a ritual as of late and thought it would be an interesting question to pose.

Language is a symbol... one big symbol. It was once said by King Wilhelm II that the important thing to remember about America is that we don't speak German. If we did speak German, would we have sided with Germany in the First World War? Maybe.

I am not an expert on semiotics or literary theory at all (and there might be people around here who are), but I tend to think that language as symbol is a powerful force in constructing reality. Is language simply a collection of symbols that forms a reality that the vast majority choose to accept?

Perhaps. I suppose that is merely one reason why we should learn to be more mindful of our words. What are we conveying?What symbols or realities are we reinforcing with the English language that isn't in other languages? Perhaps some of our multi lingual friends would pop in and give us some perspective?

You mentioned objective reality in a later post. This is very difficult, and it seems to me it ultimately becomes a matter of faith. There is the old puzzler: how do I know that I am not a disembodied brain sitting in a container in a mad scientists lab? Actually, since the Matrix, we could invoke its plot here as well.

Just some random ramblings.

No, random ramblings is what started this thread... so its all good.

It is all a matter of faith. If we don't "settle" for a concensual reality, it's hard to get along in life - but no one ever said that the reality we all settle for is objective... so we can definitely use to think outside those boxes once and again.

 

[perks]

stalking

 

[Guest]

 

[Black_Bird]

Contribute? Anyone?

 

[missbehavin_badly]

Can an idea or thought disguised as a symbol affect the fabric of reality? I suppose it really depends on one's definition of reality. Doesn't one's mind and how he choose to percieve affect what is "reality" to him? If a symbol, therefore, would affect the way his mind percieved, wouldn't it, in affect, change his reality?

I believe you answered your own question. Perception is reality!

 

[Hamletmaschine]

There are 3 basic positions on your question:

The realist (empiricist, scientific) view hold that reality exists, has its own essentially 'meaning', and that language/symbols are, at best, an imperfect reflection of reality. To understand reality, we must, essentially, get outside language/culture.

The linguistic or constructionist position holds that we construct reality through language. While "real" reality may very well exist outside of language, we can never get outside of language to see it or know it (the old 'prison-house of language' trope, or Derrida's 'there is no outside-the-text').

The discursive position says that, yes, of course reality exists outside of language. But there can be nothing meaningful outside of language. Reality exists, in other words, but it has no 'natural' or 'god-given' meaning for us to discover. It is the meanings we give to reality that play the major role in shaping how we think and act in the world. Reality isn't affected one bit by the symbols themselves, but the actions of humans in response to those symbols certainly do affect reality itself.

 

[seXieleXie]

there is a sociological viewpoint called "symbolic interactionalism" that studies the effects of symbols on sociological interaction.

 

[Hamletmaschine]

Although symbolic interactionism doesn't go quite so far as deconstructionism, it is basically a constructionist perspective. That whole Chicago school was only looking at social reality, though, of course....

 

[lavender]

 

[Black_Bird]

... Now for another interesting slant on this conversation...

Do you all realize that thousands of people read our stories everyday? That's a lot of power there, if symbols truly do affect reality.

 

[lavender]

 

[Guest]

 

[freescorfr]

Actually, its neither. I've been working on a ritual as of late and thought it would be an interesting question to pose.

What the ritual Black_Bird?

I find the thread very interesting and might add to it that Jacques Salome, a French psycho-sociologist, suggets that the symbolic and the rituals involved with it are one of three registers (or wave-lengths) in which human communication takes place. The three are:
The real
The Imaginary and
The symbolic.

Normally we use them all - but not all at once and a lot of communication is poor because we hear in one registry what is being said in another.

And if we only have one or predominantly one e.g. as claude_moveml says he had, we're in a bad way.

Also, I feel we have lost our access to the use of symbols over many centuries with the institutionalisation of religions.
The most glaring example of the destruction of the power of a symbol, and the confusion between these registers, is the Catholic Church's insistence on the real presence. Jesus used bread as a symbol for himself which is more powerful, because the symbolic speaks loudly within the subconscious, than the spoken belief that the bread is actually the body, the flesh of Jesus, which it patently is not and therefore demands that believers only operate in the imaginary.
What a cock up!!

So what's the ritual Black_bird?

 

[Black_Bird]

There's a bit of a logical fallacy there.
You are being a bit too linear in your thinking.

Hmm... Perhaps I should reword it then.

The writers at Literotica command the attention of thousands of readers. They have the potential to influence the symbolic reality of each one of those people.

Better?

Here's a few new questions: How closely do you think logic emulates objective reality? How much influence do you think language has over logic?

 

[Black_Bird]

I find the thread very interesting and might add to it that Jacques Salome, a French psycho-sociologist, suggets that the symbolic and the rituals involved with it are one of three registers (or wave-lengths) in which human communication takes place. The three are:
The real
The Imaginary and
The symbolic.

How does one seperate the real, the imaginary, and the symbolic? Is it necessary that we divide our subjective realities into these three things, or so they all reflect differing aspects of objective reality?

Also, I feel we have lost our access to the use of symbols over many centuries with the institutionalisation of religions. The most glaring example of the destruction of the power of a symbol, and the confusion between these registers, is the Catholic Church's insistence on the real presence. Jesus used bread as a symbol for himself which is more powerful, because the symbolic speaks loudly within the subconscious, than the spoken belief that the bread is actually the body, the flesh of Jesus, which it patently is not and therefore demands that believers only operate in the imaginary. What a cock up!!

I've always said that faith is more important the belief any day of the week; but either of them, given blindly, is destructive.

So what's the ritual Black_bird?

You won't give up until I tell you, will you? http://216.40.201.155/s/cwm/alien/ho.gif Well, if you must know, I have written an Enochian Banishing Ritual, very much in the style of the Greater Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, but completely in Enochian. I'm about to test it out for the second time as soon as I get dressed. http://www.contrabandent.com/cwm/s/cwm/alien/smile.gif

 

[freescorfr]

You won't give up until I tell you, will you? http://216.40.201.155/s/cwm/alien/ho.gif Well, if you must know, I have written an Enochian Banishing Ritual, very much in the style of the Greater Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, but completely in Enochian. I'm about to test it out for the second time as soon as I get dressed. http://www.contrabandent.com/cwm/s/cwm/alien/smile.gif

I'm off to look it up. I've heard of it I know, but sounds useful.

Mostly the registers sre not difficult to separate. A child says, " I want a monkey, and a snake" That's in the imaginary. The parent replies in the real ,"Who woulf feed them and where would we put them?"

But the child can symbolise his desire for these pets by choosing an object to symbolise the desire and taking care of it - or not.

I'm intrigued by Enoch!!

 

[Dhalgren]

I took a pentacle and consecrated it by the Gods…
I drew down the moon and placed a protection spell on this ancient symbol.

I hung this item on my door..

You know what?
People are indeed very wary of it..
I’ve looked out the window only to watch strangers approach the door..reach out to touch it, then promptly change their mind and retreat down the front steps.

Is it because I believe in the protection spell?
Is it because the symbol its self scares some people?

Well..it doesn’t really matter that each group sees the symbol differently.

It still has the same effect.